World Weekend Boxing Roundup: Glowacki KO’s Huck In America

Just like last weekend, the big fight happened on Friday but this time the result was a massive upset with a longtime world champion gunned down in what was supposed to be his big moment in the sun.

WBO cruiserweight champion Marco Huck was making his 14th consecutive title defense after finally managing to break out of Germany, where he is a big star in the sport, and land a fight in the US and on American TV.

“Kapt’n Hook” was a big favorite going into his defense against undefeated Pole Krzysztof Glowacki and with his planned “graduation” into the heavyweight ranks following this bout, it was almost a forgone conclusion that Huck would mop the floor with his unknown challenger and soon be on his way to showdowns against heavyweight world champs Wladimir Klitschko and Deontay Wilder.

But Glowacki, Huck’s mandatory challenger, didn’t come all the way from Walcz, Poland to be anyone’s stepping stone and the southpaw made that apparent at the end of the first round when he hurt Huck just before the bell with a pinpoint right hand.

The Polish express kept running in the second and third rounds with Glowacki putting Huck in the unusual position of fighting off the backfoot but the champ’s great advantage in experience began to show by the fourth frame when Huck began to trade on increasingly even terms with his challenger.

Glowacki’s Cinderella story hit the solid brick wall of reality in the sixth round when he was floored and badly hurt by a perfect left hook with a lot of time left in the round.

The 29 year old surprised everyone at ringside by beating the count but also by not looking to hold, clinch or run. Instead, Glowacki engaged in a full scale slugfest with the champion and somehow managed to hear the bell to end the round.

The seventh through tenth were full of action and drama as the combatants gave everything they had in the attempt to snuff out the ambitions of their enemy and it was shocking to see that the seasoned Huck, rather than the green Glowacki, was the first to crack.

That point came in the 11th frame when Huck was battered to the floor by a searing combination. The 30 year old Berliner was clearly hurt but beat the count, only to fall back partially through the ropes on his way to the canvas again under the weight of the challenger’s frenzied followup attack.

This brought about the end of the fight at 2:39 of the round and with it a new star was born in the cruiserweight division.

Glowacki annexes the WBO title, improving to 25-0 (16). Huck drops to 38-3-1 (26), having failed to top Johnny Nelson’s divisional record of 13 consecutive title defenses.

For Glowacki’s immediate future, the field now is wide open but in 2016, he will likely have to meet his own mandatory challenger, who will probably be the WBO’s Intercontinental beltholder, Oleksandr Usyk, 7-0 (7).

Despite having only fought seven times as a professional, Usyk won the gold medal at heavyweight for Ukraine in the 2012 Olympics and has wiped out seven seasoned opponents, not a single one of which were close to having a losing record.

Huck must go back to Germany and decide whether to continue with his plans to fight as a heavyweight or remain as a cruiser and try to work his way back up the ladder, as he did after losing an IBF cruiserweight bid to champion Steve Cunningham in 2007.

The same Steve Cunningham was also on the bill at the Prudential Center, as a 39 year old heavyweight contender, looking to get past 46 year old former light heavyweight world champ Antonio Tarver.

As both Cunningham and Tarver are mainly counterpunchers, this fight was way, way less dramatic then the barnburner between Glowacki and Huck as Cunningham kept his distance and outworked Tarver, who concentrated on power shots whenever he gained proximity to his rival.

Not surprisingly, the pair fought to a draw on scores of 115-113 for each and an even 114-114. Tarver goes to 31-6-1 (22) while Cunningham stands at 28-7-1 (13).

Will either boxer get the title shot they are both chasing? Possibly not as neither are big draws for ticket sales and also are accomplished, experienced fighters who won’t be easy to beat = high risk, low reward opponents.

Heading down south to Club Comunicaciones in Pergamino, Argentina, local featherweight Anahi Esther Sanchez, 11-0 (4), kept her record perfect by posting a 99-91, 97-93, 97-93 UD over Dominican veteran Dahiana Santana, 34-7 (14), who lost the Interim WBA female title in the process.

This was a big upset as Santana was riding a seven bout win streak, four of which were for the WBA featherwight title, and Santana, who had previously faced only limited opposition, had never been past six rounds.

Jumping way, way over the Pacific, we land in sunny Australia where there were rumblings in the heavyweight division as a very tall tree was felled at the Melbourne Pavilion in Flemington.

6 foot 4 inch tall local hero Lucas “Big Daddy” Browne, 23-0 (20), was dwarfed by 7 foot 1 inch American late replacement opponent Julius Long, 16-19 (14), but the WBA mandatory challenger still produced another KO, this time in the ninth frame of a scheduled 10 rounder.

But it wasn’t easy as Long moved out to an early lead, using his amazing 90 inch reach to keep Browne at a distance and grabbing the Aussie in a clinch whenever things got close.

Long landed some right hands that rocked Browne a bit but by the fourth, the Sydney man began to put Long on the ropes and catch him with a few power shots, although the visitor used a Mayweather-like shoulder roll to avoid the worst of it.

By the sixth, Browne was starting to find his rhythm and had Long down in the eighth. The end came in the ninth when Long took the full force of a big left hand and was KO’d at 2:59 of the round.

Browne reportedly injured his right hand during the contest but a lot of his problems were defense related. He’s fortunate that Long isn’t very coordinated or fundamentally skilled but if Browne gets his wish and meets either WBA champ Ruslan Chagaev or WBC kingpin Deontay Wilder, both whom he has been calling out in the press, he will be facing an opponent who is far more formidable than Long.

Also on the card at Flemington, lightweight Will Tomlinson, 24-2-1 (13), coming off a loss in America for the NABF and WBO super feather belts, had a tough time with Filipino veteran Adones Aguelo, 24-12-2 (16), on the way to posting a 97-93, 97-94, 95-95 majority decision.

Setting the clock for Saturday, we take a long flight back over the Pacific to hit tarmac in Guamichil, Mexico at Estadio de Beisbol Alberto Vega Chavez.

That’s where WBC super fly supremo Carlos Cuadras, 33-0-1 (26), retained his crown for the fourth time, halting outgunned Nicaraguan bantamweight Dixon Flores, 11-3-2 (3), at 1:11 of the fifth round.

Flores came into the contest with four straight victories but had never faced an opponent anywhere near the level of Cuadras, who as a karmic result, could have to travel to Japan and meet Naoya “Monster” Inoue, who in just eight pro bouts has won the WBC/OPBF/Japanese light fly titles and most recently, dethroned longtime, thought to be unbeatable, WBO super fly champ Omar Andres Narvaez by second round KO.

Flores would certainly rather be facing another world champion in a unification bout rather than fighting lower level opponents so hopefully that will occur for him in the near future.

At 46 years of age, former IBF light heavy champ Glen Johnson, 54-21-2 (37), is still out there throwing punches for a living and was in action at Wynwood Stadium in Miami, Florida but lost to Turkish slugger Avni Yildrim, 6-0 (4), by scores of 99-91, 96-94, 96-94 after 10 rounds for the vacant WBC International light heavy strap.

Popping up to the great white north of Canada, we end this report at the world’s largest Hockey arena, Montreal’s Bell Centre, where one of the biggest names on the domestic scene made a successful comeback.

Ex-IBF super middle king Lucian Bute, 32-2 (25), bounced back from his massive domestic showdown loss to Jean Pascal last year with a fourth round TKO at light heavyweight of EBU super middle titlist Andrea Di Luisa, 17-3 (13).

Bute will look to bounce back from his three year tumble following the loss of his IBF crown in a unification clash to Carl Froch but the 35 year old lefty isn’t ranked in the top ten by any of the four main sanctioning bodies and is campaigning in a division topped by IBF/WBO/WBA champ Sergey Kovalev and WBC boss Adonis Stevenson, two very high hurdles.

A fight with the fellow Montreal-based Stevenson in particular would be a huge money spinner and could occur in 2016 in Bute can win some meaningful fights and Stevenson avoids a Kovalev unification contest.